General… Make haste! ”
Adam saw the wind feeling its way into the loosely brailed topsails. It was easy to contain your anger when the enemy was so obvious.
The shantyman ended with a flourish, “Well, still I’ve got that same old knife!”
“Anchor’s aweigh, sir!”
Adam walked to the opposite side to watch the land sliding away, as more men released from the capstan bars hurried to add their weight to the braces, to haul the yards round and capture the wind.
He took a telescope from its rack and trained it on the ancient battlements, and the gaping embrasures where cannon had once dominated the harbour. Where they had held one another. And had loved, impossible though it was to believe.
Galbraith had found him on deck during the morning watch, and had probably imagined he had risen early to see the bomb vessel and the weed-encrusted Matchless clearing the harbour.
Or had he guessed that he had been watching the third ship making an early departure, tall and somehow invulnerable with her spreading canvas. A merchantman, the Aranmore, bound for Southampton. Had she also been on deck to watch the anchored men-of-war, he wondered? Had she already forgotten, or locked it away, another hidden secret?
He said, “Take station on the Flag, Mr Galbraith, and lay her on the starboard tack once we are clear.” He tried to smile, to lighten it. “As ordered, remember?”
He paced to the compass box and back again. And then there was Catherine’s letter. Perhaps it would have been better to have sailed earlier, before the latest courier had anchored. My dear Adam…
What, after all, had he expected? She had nobody to care for her, to protect her from malicious gossip and worse.
He raised the glass again and waited for the image to focus on the first patch of windblown water. Frobisher. Much as she had been when she had quit Malta with his uncle’s flag at the main. He had felt it when he had walked her deck, sensed it in the watching faces, though few, if any, could have been aboard on that fatal day.
He lowered the glass and looked at his own ship, the seamen flaking down lines and securing halliards. In spite of everything, he had seen the bond grow and strengthen. They were one company.
Perhaps he was wrong about Rhodes, and a show of force was all that it needed. But in his heart he knew it was something else. Unsaid, like that which Bethune had left behind, as dangerous as
Unrivalled’s shadow on the seabed when they had entered the shallows.
He saw Napier coming aft with something on a covered tray. The boy who had trusted him enough to come and tell him of Lady Bazeley’s plight. He laid his palm briefly on the polished wood of the ladder where she had been lying helpless.
He should be able to accept it. Instead, he was behaving like some moonstruck youth.
He heard Cristie give a little cough, waiting to make his report, course to steer, estimated time of arrival. Then the purser would come: provisions and fresh water, and this time, no doubt with Forbes’ influence, some welcome casks of beer from the army.
“Signal from Flag, sir!” Midshipman Cousens sounded subdued. “Make more sail!”
“Acknowledge.” Adam turned away and saw Midshipman Deighton speaking with the newly-minted lieutenant, Bellairs. It gave him time to think, to recall Forbes’ words on board Frobisher. Not afraid to take a risk if you thought it justified.
He said, “Be patient, Mr Cousens. I fear you will be much in demand until we sight an enemy!”
Those around him laughed, and others who were out of earshot paused in their work as if to share it.
Adam looked through the great web of spars and rigging. Perhaps Rhodes was watching Unrivalled at this very moment.
Aloud he said, “I’ll see you damned, my lord!”
Bellairs watched the captain walk to the companion-way and then gave his attention to the new midshipman again. It was hard to believe that he had been one himself, and so recently given his commission. It would make his parents in Bristol very proud.
The war was over, but for the navy the fighting was never very far away. Like this new challenge, the Algerine pirates. He found violent death more acceptable than the prospect of life as one of those he had seen left wounded and hopelessly crippled.
He touched the fine, curved hanger at his side. He had been astounded when the first lieutenant had told him of the captain’s offer.
He suddenly realised what Midshipman Deighton had been asking him about the ship and her young captain.
He said simply, “I’d follow him to the cannon’s mouth.”
He touched the hanger again and grinned. A King’s officer.
Midshipman Cousens lowered the big signals telescope and dashed spray from his tanned features with his sleeve.
“Boat’s casting off from the flagship now, sir!”
Lieutenant Galbraith crossed to the nettings and stared at the lively, broken water, the crests dirty yellow in the strange glare. The weather had worsened almost as soon as they had left Malta, wind whipping the sea into serried ranks of angry waves, spray pouring from sails and rigging alike as if they were fighting through a tropical rainstorm. If the wind did not ease, the ships would be scattered overnight. As they had been last night, and they had struggled to reform to the admiral’s satisfaction.
As Cristie had often said, the Mediterranean could never be trusted, especially when you needed perfect conditions.
He saw the cutter staggering clear of Frobisher’s glistening side; it was a wonder that it had not capsized in its first crossing. To use the gig had been out of the question. A cutter was heavier and had the extra brawn to carry her through this kind of sea.
He had been both doubtful and anxious when Captain Bolitho had told him he was going across to the flagship to see Rhodes in person, after three signals to the admiral requesting an audience. Each had been denied without explanation, as was any admiral’s right. But it was also the right of any captain to see his flag officer, if he was prepared to risk reprimand for wasting the great man’s time.
With his own coxswain at the tiller Bolitho had headed away, his boat-cloak black with spray before they had covered a few yards. It would not have been the first time a captain had been marooned aboard a flagship because of bad weather. Suppose it had happened now? The captain would have had to endure the sight of his own command hove-to under storm canvas, and another man’s voice at the quarterdeck rail. Mine.
He watched the cutter lifting, porpoising slightly before riding the next trough of dark water, the oars rising and dipping, holding the hull under control. At other times he could scarcely see more than the bowed heads and shoulders of the boat’s crew, as if they were already going under.
Galbraith felt only relief. He had heard the rumours about Bolitho’s disagreement with the admiral at the last conference, the hostility and the sarcasm, as if Rhodes were trying to goad him into something which would be used against him. It was something personal, and therefore dangerous, even to others who might be tempted to take sides in the matter.
The cutter plunged into a trough and then lifted her stem again like a leaping porpoise. Even without a glass he could see the grin on the captain’s face, stronger than any words or code of discipline. He had seen it at first hand in action, when these same men had doubted their own ability to fight and win, had seen how some of them had touched his arm when he had passed amongst them. The victors.
He called sharply, “Stand by to receive the captain!”
But the boatswain and his party were already there. Like himself, they had been waiting with their blocks and tackles, perhaps without even knowing why.
He saw a small figure in a plain blue coat, drenched through like the rest of them: Ritzen, the purser’s clerk. A quiet, thoughtful man, and an unlikely one to spark off a chain of events which might end in a court martial, or worse. But Ritzen was different from the others around him. He was Dutch, and had signed on with the King’s navy when he had been rescued by an English sloop after being washed overboard in a storm and left for dead by his own captain.